Goter

“We
should transform the Bedouin into an urban proletariat in industry,
services, construction and agriculture. 88% of the Israeli population
are not farmers, let the Bedouins be like them. Indeed, this will
be a radical move which means that the Bedouin would not live on
his land with his herds, but would become an urban person who comes
home in the afternoon and puts his slippers on… The children would
go to school with their hair properly combed. This would be a revolution,
but it may be fixed within two generations. Without coercion but
with government direction ...this phenomenon of the Bedouins will disappear.” Moshe
Dayan, 1963

Since
the mid-1960’s the Palestinians
of Bedouin descent inhabitants
of the Naqab (Negev) have been subjected to a policy of dispossession
of their traditional lands and relocation to seven townships planned
by the Israeli government,
largely without consultation
of the people affected. The land they leave behind is then made
available for use by Jewish citizens. At present, approximately
half of the 110,000 Palestinian Bedouin in the Naqab are living
in these townships. According to official statistics,
they are among the very poorest of all communities in Israel, lacking
sufficient public services, haunted by high rates of unemployment
and criminality, and denied viable prospects of development.

The
remaining half of the Palestinian Bedouin in the Naqab has so far
refused to move to these townships, to avoid losing their lands
and being subjected to culturally adverse and socially degrading
living conditions. They live in more than 100 unrecognized villages,
where the laws of the Jewish State prohibit them from building permanent
structures, where houses are regularly demolished, fields deemed
illegal by the authorities sprayed with toxic
chemicals,
families evicted from their homes, and where there is no public
access to electricity,
running water, or
public services
such as health care, sanitation and education beyond primary school
level.

Ahlam
Shibli’s work,“Goter, photographs from unrecognised
villages and recognisedtownships”, addresses the position
of the Palestinian of Bedouin descent in the state of Israel: where
there is a house there is no home, where there is a home there is
no house. “Goter” is a word foreign to the Arabic language, used
by the Palestinian Bedouin of the Naqab. According to local people,
it is derived from the English “Go there”, a command Palestinian
Bedouin would hear from the military during the era of the British
Mandate (1917-1948).